By Natalie BennettThursday 6 Jul 2023Salt 106.5 WeekendsRelationshipsReading Time: 2 minutes

Relationship expert and neuropsychotherapist Joanne Wilson shares how we get the best sleep. If your partner’s a restless sleeper, then you probably are as well, and this can be fixed. 

Anything can come up when it comes to sleep and sleep hygiene… raucous snoring, and many other unhelpful habits that your partner doesn’t tend to warm to.

How do we get the best sleep?

Let’s address the big one is ‘the snorer’. Joanne’s advice is “head off to the doctor. There are some sexy CPAP machines that you could get. I know that’s not very helpful, but they might have an alternative option to make sure that you’re getting plenty of oxygen to your brain. Or there could be some other issues such as weight or lifestyle habits that are contributing to your snoring.”

“Make sure that you turn off any screens in the bedroom at least 30 minutes before bed, it’ll mess with the melanin in your brain. If not, don’t have screens in there at all.”

Another obvious one Joanne recommends is “only have caffeine free drinks and food after lunch, don’t stock yourself at 4:00 PM with a hot cup of coffee that could mess up your energy levels, and have you trying to nod off to sleep when you’re full of caffeine. Train your body to sleep by following a routine.”

Joanne shares sleep hygiene comes up a lot in the counseling room; “what that means is making sure that you have some really, really nice clean, consistent approaches to heading off to sleep, such as regular times, maybe have your extremities warm. My dad always said your whole body’s cold if your feet are cold.”

“Maybe have a weighted blanket… just think of all these little tips that can help you head off to a wonderful restful sleep that has you rejuvenated and the best version of you for your relationship.”

Joanne’s 3 powerful reasons why sleep boosts your relationship bliss…

1. Rested and rejuvenated

When you are rested and rejuvenated, you have, uh, the best opportunity to be the best version of yourself to contribute to your relationship when you are bright and perky and feeling like you have clarity of thought after a greats great sleep.

2.  You help your partner sleep when you sleep well without all the noises.

And when you’re a calm, uh, I guess yes, solid, consistent sleeper, you are less likely to wake up your partner.

3. Downtime

that quality time that you and your partner have as you turn down the lights and you prepare to down-regulate and have quite time, uh, when you both go to bed at the same time, if that’s possible, uh, that is quite a precious sacred time in people’s relationships.

Listen to the full conversation in the player above. 

For more from Joanne Wilson tune in each Saturday from 12pm or find more from The Relationship Rejuvenator online.